Bullying in Outdoor Sports: Reactions & Responsibilities (Ep.71)

In the past several days, there has been another reported instance of bullying in the outdoor sports world, and the loud, swift, and aggressive reactions to this have made it extremely clear that many of us still have a lot to learn and think through.

Last week, professional climber, Sasha Digiulian, announced on social media that she has been the ongoing target of tasteless jokes by fellow climber, Joe Kinder. Sascha stated that she had reached out to Joe in private about this to try to resolve the matter, but had received no reply. So, finally, she went public.

You can read below — and you should read these if you haven’t already — Sascha’s statement, Joe’s apology, and the responses by Black Diamond and La Sportiva about why they’ve terminated their sponsorships of Joe.

But the reason why we are talking about all this now is because of the firestorm of responses online and on social media to these events.

So in this conversation, I’m joined by Blister’s climbing editor, Dave Alie, to discuss why it’s wrong to assume that this is simply some little, isolated issue in the climbing world; whether Black Diamond and Sportiva were justified in their responses; and why it is that our own responses of criticism — or support — are so often unfair, tasteless, or unjust in their own right.

TOPICS & TIMES:

What happened, and why are we discussing it? (0:18)

Did Black Diamond and La Sportiva do the right thing? (16:25)

What appropriate & inappropriate responses look like — from all of us (18:57)

I also support your decision that men shall hear it from men and you decided against having female reviers on this podcast. Even though I am afraid they could recount many encounters and anecdotes, where they were unjustly treated as women.

It is still a looooong way (few generations) to go until we have equality.

I enjoyed this podcast and appreciate the forthright and conscientious way that the issue was addressed. In the interest of furthering the understanding of male athletes and journalists about women’s experiences with bullying, I do want to point out that your guest kept referring to Mr. Kinder’s behavior as “immature” and “sub-optimal,” which are frustrating word choices.

Mr. Kinder evidently spent eight years insulting and ridiculing Ms. DiGiulian’s physical appearance. She describes the behavior as “bullying,” “harassing,” “defamatory” and “assaulting” behavior. I wish there had been more discussion of exactly what Mr. Kinder did and why it was so harmful so that we could really get a sense of the impact this had on Ms. DiGiulian. At any rate, this sort of double-insult is something that women in adventure sports deal with constantly; first the abuse, and then the secondary attack on the woman for daring to complain the abuse, which is minimized via weak language. And suffering will rain down on a woman exponentially harder if the main involved suffers any tangible consequences for his actions.

It seems that there is still, even among the most empathetic of male commentators, a gap in understanding how behavior such as Mr. Kinder’s impacts female athletes, and a tendency to mitigate the severity of the male behavior while diminishing the experience of women. Again, I applaud your treatment of the issue in general and I know that your intentions were earnest, but I do want to urge you in the future to consider your language choices and what they may say about how you perceive or articulate women’s experiences.

Lastly, I disagree that Mr. Kinder responded “well” to the whole matter. It seems to have taken the loss of his sponsorships for him to even respond to Ms. DiGiulian, and then his apology was decidedly tepid. He essentially said: “Sorry you don’t get my sense of humor and sorry if you were offended.” That’s not an acknowledgement of his actions He didn’t “own” anything; he deflected responsibility to his audience for the way they received his behavior. That is not the action of an adult taking responsibility for himself, it is the weasel words of a person who does not want to confront the harm he has done.

Thank you for the comments, Chris. Two things I want to respond to here:

(1) Dave’s word choice was pretty deliberate, as was mine. Because neither Dave nor I (and perhaps no one beyond Sasha and Joe?) know all the details about exactly what’s been said or done. So we thought it was important to stick very close to Sasha’s own description about what has been said or done, and not move into speculation.

So while I agree with you that in cases where we *do* know what has transpired, it is important not to use “weak language.” But it is also important not to say more than one actually knows. So I don’t think it would be fair, in this instance, to say or assume that Dave or I “mitigated the severity” of Joe’s actions or words — we don’t know exactly what has been said or done. What we could speak to – and did speak to – is the inappropriate responses – mostly from guys – about this matter.

(2) As far as Joe’s apology, when I personally first read it, my initial thoughts were similar to yours.

But what we thought was best was to follow Sasha’s lead — and you can read her own words about Joe’s apology on this page. Sasha requested that all of us accept Joe’s apology as sincere, as she herself has done. I think hers was a very charitable response, and I can’t see how it is better for us (or anyone) to ignore Sasha’s statements and requests and condemn the apology as insincere (and perhaps especially since neither you nor I know what’s in Joe’s heart). So in **this particular case** we thought it best to follow Sasha’s lead.

But as a general rule, yes — it’s become far too common in our society to see “apologies” from men to women that seem neither sincere nor remotely adequate. And that needs to change immediately.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply; I understand your reasoning and appreciate your instinct toward neutrality in reporting. It’s just that Sasha’s own words were that she experienced “defamatory and assaulting” behavior that was “malicious” in its intent. And Dave called that same behavior “immature,” which implies a significant difference in degree of severity. In choosing to call Kinder’s behavior “immature,” Dave was in fact asserting his own speculative judgement about that behavior, not hewing to Sasha’s own description. He could simply have said “according to Sasha… ” and then used her actual words, but he didn’t. He used his own words, and those painted a different, and less damaging, picture than hers.

I do appreciate the that podcast was largely about the response of other men to the incident (and again, thank you for addressing that so forthrightly), but in the case of the “immature and sub-optimal”comment, Dave was referring directly to Mr. Kinder’s behavior.

I think that the reason this semantic nuance is important (to many women anyway) is that when the word “immature” is applied to male behavior, it is received by women as a sort of “boys will be boys” shrug-off of their concerns. We have all heard some version of the “he’s a good guy, he was just being immature” defense and it rankles because it often diminishes the impact and severity of behavior that caused real harm.

In the end, I am on your side and applaud your podcast and sincerely hope that you continue to tackle such important issues. Best wishes. Chris

Chris,
Thanks for listening and thanks for the feedback. These are issues that I take very seriously and work to stay current on, but I’m not very rehearsed at speaking about them off the cuff, in a live setting. Yet words matter, and I appreciate the reminder on those words in particular. I agree with your sentiments, cheers for taking the time.

I wonder if there is a willingness in outdoor journalism to make space for people like Jake to share their experiences? I ask because Jake, my immediate reaction to your comment was curiosity about what happened, and because I think it’s important that male voices be heard on the subject of toxic masculinity as well. That is, how it impacts not just women but male friends and co-workers. It seems like it would be a rich and interesting vein to mine. Or perhaps it’s being done? Anyway, thanks again for a great piece.